What's That Sound ... ?

... why, I believe it might be "silence".

All of our guests are either now home (Susie, Joe and Joyce) or en route (Liz, Rhys and Dan). We miss them already and I believe the cats do too.

We had a great time, and everything over the past 8 or 9 days went extremely well.

Friday night before last, Susie and Dan came in. We had to pick Dan up late from the airport, because he had been "T-boned" in Columbia, MO by some guy in a pickup truck. He was unhurt, but his car was pretty messed up. We didn't really have dinner, just some snacks.

Saturday before last, we got a few things done around here and had a good time with Susie and Dan. We went out for dinner at a new restaurant for us, "Carraba's" (a pretty good Italian chain), and went to see "Borat" ... hysterical movie.

Sunday before last, Susie and Dan left in the morning for Torrington where they hooked up with David (Susie's "squeeze" in Dallas) and his kids and parents. They went down to New York City for an overnight, and we got in some last-minute cleaning.

Last Monday, Joe and Joyce got in, and Susie and Dan came back from New York. We had some chili - very basic - and Joe and Joyce got settled in.

Tuesday was not exactly a "banner day" for me. On the way to the office in the morning, I looked down at the radio in my car to make a station change, and "curbed" both passenger wheels and tires. I blew out the back tire completely, and put a large gouge in the sidewall of the front tire. Both alloy wheels were completely screwed up. I ended up working from home, since Audi didn't have the wheels in stock and had to be ordered from their parts depot in New Jersey for Wednesday delivery.

Tuesday night was our "official celebration" of Joyce and Joe's 60th wedding anniversary, and we had a great time listening to Jason Castonguay's performance of a number of hits from Joe and Joyce's era. He is an incredible kid of 27, and is a heck of a performer, blind or not. Joe and Joyce were both extremely surprised and were thrilled with our treat for them. Here he is, while Joyce talks to his personal assistant Ron Hughes.
We had very nice filets, mushrooms, baked potatoes, a nice chopped salad, and a small wedding cake for our dessert. It was a wonderful evening.

Wednesday, I again worked from home and waited for Audi to call with the arrival of the new wheels. Since all my tires were showing a good deal of wear, we decided to get a full set, rather than replacing the bad two. Lovely. At any rate, we had them mounted by 5:30 PM or so.

Wednesday night was filled with pre-Thanksgiving Day prep work. Pie baking (3 pumpkin, 3 pecan), appetizer pre-prep, cranberry sauce cooking, and turkey brining was the order of the night. It was nice to have the larger kitchen so everyone had room to work. It is a heck of a lot more efficient than what we had at the apartment ... no more "one-butt kitchen"! Yay! I grilled some pork tenderloins and we cooked up some acorn squash - yum.

Thursday ... Thanksgiving Day's weather really sucked. It started raining hard around 9:00 AM, and didn't stop until it dumped another 2.6 inches on us. However, I got both 12+ pound turkeys on the grill at 10:00 AM, to be timed with an expected eating time of 4:00 PM.

Liz and Rhys got in on time at 9:35 AM or so, but we decided to pop for a cab ride for them from the airport. It was a bit of a challenge to route the cab driver around all the street closings for the 70th running of the Manchester Road Race, since one of our main roads is part of the course. They got here fine, however, and it saved us a lot of valuable time.

Liz's friend Lindsay (originally from Phoenix and Tucson, now living in Worcester, MA) got in around 12:30 PM or so.

David, his kids Michael and Rachel, Michael's girlfriend Meghan, David's parents Frank and Pat arrived around 1:00 PM.

I am happy to announce that the turkeys were actually done ahead of the completion of the rest of the fixings - oyster dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, brussels sprouts, green beans almondine, cranberry sauce, rolls, and all the rest. We were only about 25-30 minutes late of our planned 4:00 PM "sit-down" ... not too bad, considering all the food.

Everyone had tons to eat, they loved it all, and everything went very smoothly. Since it was their "official anniversary", we even got Joyce and Joe to cut a rug:
Friday, we decided to go experience the lighting of the decorated trees in Constitution Plaza in Hartford and grab dinner out. We had a terrific dinner at a restaurant ("Spris" - pronounced "sprees") neither Janice nor I had ever frequented, and it was right on the Plaza. There were thousands of people out that night for the lighting, but we had the best seats in the town. It was really cool to see them flip the switch.

Saturday, we decided to get out again, and to take a drive down to the Connecticut shoreline. We went to "Bill's Seafood" in Westbrook, CT. They have a Dixieland jazz band there on Saturday nights, and it was a real hit with us. We even did a little dancing. :-)
Sunday, we did a Farmer's Breakfast, followed by football, and then I did my Fettucini Carbonara for dinner, with a nice chopped salad.

Today, I dropped Dan at the airport in the morning, Janice dropped Joyce and Joe at the airport later in the morning, then I came home for lunch to see the kids before Janice took them to the airport. Liz and Rhys both had a terrific time, and it was great to see them.
Tonight, it will be leftover Fettucini Carbonara, I think ... and a quiet night.

All in all, the whole time was a smashing success, and we had terrific times and good visits with everyone.

Only one problem ... I think I have now gained a few pounds. :-)

Saturday Morning Update

Well ... the Survivor Pool was not kind to me this past week (or to five of the final six in the pool). I stayed away from the Jacksonville/Houston game for obvious historical reasons, and instead thought Atlanta would win at home against Detroit. Wrong.

The winner was one of the sons of someone in our Finance Department. He's a student at Boston College, so he doesn't need the money, but won it anyway. Ba**ard.

It's been very rainy here this past week ... we have over 3" in the rain guage, and interestingly enough, we also have a reemergence of what I call "Mosquito Alley" in the back corner of the back yard. With the warm weather we've had over the past week, I kind of expect a new batch of mosquitos out of this ... just in time for Thanksgiving. Yikes.

The good thing to report is that Susie and Danny are here now. The Thanksgiving festivities have officially begun.

You know ... Janice and I are so blessed to have wonderful families, both Brookhart (and of course Waggoner) and Cronin. We still talk about our time together with you all, and I'm sure we'll have great times over Thanksgiving. One day, I'd love for us all to be together for a Thanksgiving because I give thanks for you all ..

As I mentioned in a prior post, we have something special planned for Joyce and Joe's 60th Wedding Anniversary. I will give you a hint ... it's something musical (and really rather amazing) ... this will be really special for them. We had the piano tuned this past week, and all is ready. It should be an extremely special time and this is our anniversary gift to them.

I can't wait to see the kids. They arrive on Thanksgiving morning, due to Liz's work schedule. They are doing well (well, at least Liz is, I know) Rhys is a little more difficult to track down.

Well ...

... it's been a whirlwind 24 hours.

After my post, yesterday, I got out while there were relatively few leaves down after Saturday's "mow n' blow", and put down the last application of late fall "Winterizer" fertilizer. I had put down a light coat two or three weeks before you all got here, and I don't think it's going to hurt anything to put down a little bit more.

Then, I came in and put down two coats of B-I-N primer/sealer on the steps going downstairs in preparation for our carpet installation. That made it look better and smell better (like this ... can't smell anything, can you ... LOL):
Then ...... Janice and I completely organized the "dormitory" downstairs and put everything together in preparation for the Turkey Day Onslaught (as I am now calling it).

Remember how it looked, when you all were here? There were boxes everywhere ... beds weren't set up ... stuff was piled every which way ... we finished up about 11:30 last night.

Well now, it looks like this (note that the drapes are hung):
But wait! There's more!

Our Home Depot carpet was installed today, on the steps going down to the basement ... so here's a couple of final shots, as a good "after" picture(s) to the series:
It's a little darker than the carpet in the basement, but the shades of grey work well with what's down there already. Looks good to me, and is a hell of a lot quieter and much easier on the feet.

We Got Our First Deers!

Late for me, I came downstairs around 7:30, nuked a cup o' joe, and sat down here to look at the Blog, and started reading Jane's comments on my last post.

I kid you not ... this is extremely weird ... at the very INSTANT I got to her part about talking about going down to Sumner to get ready for the deer hunt, I saw this flurry of activity out of the driveway-side window - it was a good-sized fawn and two much larger (perhaps a doe and a young stag?) deer trotting through the end of our driveway. I jumped up from the computer and looked out the family room slider to watch, as they paused at right about the spot where I showed Marion the opening in our treeline where I had used to start our brush pile, then followed the edge of our back treeline and then took a very abrupt right turn up the hill from where our ferns are so lush each spring down near the left back edge of the back yard. Once they got into the leaves, they took sprinted off quick, straight back up the hill.

Very cool!

I just went over to the slider after getting another cup of coffee, and was looking out to see if they had come back down the hill. They have not, as yet, but I think I may have discovered why they made such an abrupt right turn to run up the hill ... "Green Arrow" (the nickname I now have for our neighbor to our left, across the wetlands, who I told you about coming across the wetlands with a full quiver of arrows, back in the summer) has put up a deer target in his back treeline. This thing looks like the body of a deer, but has no head and only two legs.

I'm presuming these deer may have seen that and said "What the hell? Let's get out of here!"

Anyway ... perhaps it would be better for you all to just come here for your deer hunt. I'll put out some apples and a salt block just a few yards out into the woods, grill some steaks and you all can sit out on the deck and pluck 'em off as they saunter by.

In Sports News ...

The SALUKIS

Let's cheer the Salukis, after their season ending loss at Carmi. At 10-1, 9-0 in the regular season, they had a terrific run. I like what their coach Bill Evans said, after the game: “As far as the seniors, I have nothing but praise for them. They're all quality kids who had good attitudes during the whole season. Hats off to those guys and what they did for this program. I always tell the kids the same thing at the end of the season - the sun comes up tomorrow but it just might not be as bright.” That is a far cry from some of the things I heard from former Lawrenceville basketball coach Ron Felling, who usually "went off" on some tirade if they didn't win.

Dallas (yuck) at Washington

Today is the second game between my beloved 'Skins and the hated Dallas Cowboys. This is always a grudge match, and it epitomizes hard-nosed bitter rivalry NFC East football.

My hope is that "Coach Joe" and his assistants come out with a good game plan, the 'Skins don't fold, and that they come up with a much-needed win. I hate seeing them at 2-5, very firmly entrenched in the NFC East "cellar".

Survivor Pool

I am still in the running, among 6 remaining entries. I and one other "playa" have San Diego, so let's root for the "Super-Chargers" at home against the Browns.

The remaining four all took the New York Giants ... so let's root for the Houston Texans in what would be a very nice upset. Houston has been a bit of a spoiler, historically, in our survivor pools (remember Jacksonville, and more than half the pool being knocked out in that game, and that is just this year ... they've been spoilers in the past three years as well). I'd love to see lightning strike twice, but the chances aren't terrific, with the Giants being at home. Anyway, we'll see.

Chore Update

The grass looks really good after yesterday's mow/blow with the Deere. (except for the deer tracks, which I just looked at ... they didn't screw up the grass ... they gave it a little aeration with their hooves, actually)

We have a few other things to do, obviously ... the chores just don't stop. :-)

Love to you all,

Lee

Halloween (plus a few days) Update

On the Halloween front -

We had a pretty nice Halloween here ... we had plenty of candy ready, Janice had her Halloween decorations out, and we got a little "spooky looking" for the event. We both dressed in black goofy attire, tried to look scary (it didn't take much for me - I just "foofed out" my already too-long hair ... Janice did a nice job on her scary make-up), and we put on some rather scary music (Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" - a perennial favorite - listen to it here) and opened the driveway-facing windows and cranked up the sound system a bit. I moved a few of the solar light rocks over to the wetlands area and focused them on the larger rocks to create a bit of an illuminated graveyard effect (for what it was worth). We lit candles in the entryway by the stairs and put a few out on the rocks to the left of the front pathway. Anyway ... we did our best.

We got 12 "real" trick or treaters ... not too bad, but I would have expected a few more in this large a neighborhood. Hmmm ... perhaps we scared off a few of the parents with the "Fugue" ... who knows.

The real "treat" for us, came at around 9:00, when at the door appeared our next door neighbors Dan and Jennifer (they are the neighbors on the driveway side of our house) and the neighbors one house up from them, Kurt and his wife (who wrote their names down, but now Janice has moved that piece of paper so I don't remember her name). We asked them if they wanted candy, or beer. Gee ... I wasn't surprised at the "Beer" response. LOL

So we had a nice little visit from them - I had already met Dan and Kurt, way back when. I hadn't met their wives. They were all very nice, and it was good for Janice to meet them all for the first time ... she's been asking me ever since, "Do you think they think we are weird or something?" since they were not dressed at all, and here we were, rather ... weird-looking and dressed up a bit. My reply was "Who cares. If they think that, well ... so be it. We are weird and really love Halloween, so what's the difference? They can all just get over it." LOL

They seem to be good people ... although Dan (immediate next-door neighbor) is a Patriots fan. Janice thought it was rather a-holish of me to say there had been a big discussion at work as to whether Tom Brady (Patriots quarterback) is or is not the most over-rated quarterback in the NFL at work, the previous day. Whatever ...

Anyway ... it was a good night.

Interesting tidbit - while I was moving the solar lights around, a Lincoln Town Car pulled up to the curb midway into our little grass strip in front of the wetlands to the right side of the house. Someone got out, and walked across our grass, and I heard him say "This is where I threw it." I was up closer to the house at the time, and started walking down toward the car and person. As I approached, the person ran back into the car, and it drove off.

Subsequent inspections in daylight have not revealed either a body, drugs, or a bundle of twenties.

So that's a bit of a mystery ... but I would imagine if it were kids throwing something out that was "important" to them, they were probably back the next morning to retrieve whatever it was.

In other TERRIFIC news ...

We've spoken to Liz a few times this week. She has been promoted from "Catering and Events Management Trainee" to "Catering and Events Management Assistant" at "Janos", the restaurant where she works, in Tucson. As you may or may not know, "Janos" is a phenomenal restaurant in Tucson, and has won numerous awards. She called the other night to tell us she's getting her own business cards from Janos. I'm pleased by that!

But ... better than that ... Liz has decided to follow her father's long-spoken advice, and has decided to go back to school (at Pima Community College) to pursue an Associate's Degree in "Hotel and Restaurant Management". I have told her, on numerous occasions, that her initial promotion into her "Catering and Events Management Trainee" spot was a great thing, and that she should look into this. This is an ever-burgeoning field, since there will ALWAYS be new restaurants, new hotels, and this part of the "Hospitality Services" industry is never going to shrink and it will never be outsourced. There is an option, in this coursework, to transfer credits to Northern Arizona University for a Bachelor's degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management. I keep bringing up her former sommelier who left Janos for a six-figure job in Las Vegas. There is money to be had in this business, and ... you know ... there isn't much better a job than one that makes other people have fun, enjoy their lives, and have great experiences. I sometimes think I would love to do something like that ... rather than "making things work" as I do.

She is coming along extremely well ... every time I call her at work to return a call or to just touch base, she is the epitome of professionalism at her job as she answers the phone. I'm extremely proud of her. :-)

On the Thanksgiving Day front -

Perhaps we discussed this ... Thanksgiving Day, this year, coincides with the 60th Wedding Anniversary date of Joe and Joyce. We are preparing for something very special, in their honor. We're really excited about this ... call me, I'll tell you about it. :-)

Turns out our T-Day plans will be for dinner for 18. I have been researching grilling the birds, rather than buying a smoker and dealing with that. I think I might be a little more comfortable grilling than smoking, since the indirect heat method on the grill is more in line with what I do with a brined turkey in the oven.

On the Pre-Thanksgiving Day front -

I got a call yesterday afternoon, from the carpet installers used by Home Depot, that we could schedule the installation of the new carpet on Monday (11/6) for the basement stairwell. I will work from home on Monday, to be around while they do this. This is a good addition to the house, since we're going to reduce "tromping teen noise" and get a nice reduction in any leftover smell from that staircase. Once we open that up to the "boys" ... we can relocate their litter box, and they can explore that level.

Today -

I have been waiting for the light frost to clear from the grass, and soon I will be out there with "the Deere" doing a leaf-blow / lawn-cut to push the downed leaves out into the woods and/or wetlands. I need to put down the final application of late-fall fertilizer down this weekend, and want to do that after the leaves have been cleared, naturally. I've been happy with my overseeding efforts, and want this yard to be even more beautiful next year.

We have a few other chores/errands to do ... dry cleaner pick-up/drop-off, pet supplies, and the first pass at dry goods purchases from Sam's Club - namely toilet paper, paper towels, coffee, etc. in preparation for the "barrage" come Thanksgiving.

We are also going to put down a coat of "B-I-N" (a sealer/primer) on the steps. I did the landing last week and it made a bit of difference in the whole "smell" issue. Perhaps if we do all the steps where the carpet will be installed on Monday, it will make even more of a dent. I think Janice will do that, while I take care of outside chores.

We also still have artwork to hang ... egad ...

I think it can be summarized by saying "The whole thing about home ownership is ... ' It's always something.' "

Other Than That ...

GO SALUKIS! BEAT CARMI!